Le Corbusier's Gaze

To my left I have a photograph of Le Corbusier staring at me. Its quite ironic having him here, as the figures I write about have strived to combat the very architecture he designed.

I am sat at a long desk that spans the width of the room, under a low beam. It is over 30 degrees celcius outside and not a cloud in the sky. Yes I'm not in England. I am in a small village not far from Bezier in the south of France where for the last 7 days I've been holidaying, for want of a better word. To be honest, it has felt like a holiday. I've spent time with my family, eaten good food, drunk wine and actually read something that was nothing to do with drama.

Highlights include a trip to the medieval town of Carcassone, where apparently Robin Hood Prince of Thieves was filmed. However, that wasn't the reason we visited it. Its a truly wonderful little gem, full of narrow winding medieval paths and roads brimming with shops and restaurants. No sweeping Haussmann boulevards here, no Corbusian secularised buildings. You could get lost here and not feel worried. It was worth the trip to France alone, and made me want to see Kevin Costner attempt an english accent again.

However, a slave to academia I remain, getting up early to work on the dissertation, sporadically editing throughout the day before making necessary corrections the following morning. Its going ok. The third draft reads better than the second (sorry Ila), as I've had time to reflect, to take my head from within the clouds and acess the situation from afar. Both my parents have read my second draft and my sister, the first chapter. My brother was only interested in the pages with pictures alas, but an outside eye is an outside eye. It was quite surreal handing it over to my parents, as I've never let them read my essays since high school. My mum was interested in it and raised some interesting points. My father didn't wholly understand it, but gave me some useful tips on presentation and such (as he reads a lot of reports in his job). I am now basicaly in the polishing stages, making the essay read well, connecting all the points and remaining consistent with my grammar aswell as binding the bloody thing. I haven't been able to fit all I wanted into it, as it is only a dissertation, but hopefully it'll be enough.

Back from the Dead

I am sat in the only free space of my bedroom, surrounded by boxes comprising of all I have accumulated over a year. I've moved out. For a month. It was sad leaving as I really enjoyed living in that house with my housemates. Oh well. I'll only be moving round the corner.

Now I am sat with what looks to be the second draft of my dissertation, complete with pictures and references! Its still way off completetion yet, as some of my sentences are a bit too wordy and a couple of references need to be completed, but it is a dissertation nonetheless. I've been very lucky in comparison to that of some of my friends as this is all I've had to do since I finished with the Shakespeare. Some of my friends are true machines, working part time and writing a dissertation, which is something that I will need to get used to for the next 3 years. The only setback I had occurred a few nights ago, when my computer was hit with 3 viruses which knocked it into a coma. Fortunately I had backed everything up, but it was slightly annoying having to trek to the library or the department to work on it. However, last night, I restored it to its factory settings, and its back in the dissertation game.

What else have I done? Ah I went to France for 4 days which was nice. Although I spent alot of it on the diss (I always seem to panic when I leave Exeter). I popped into my old job for a day and got to work with my sister which was pretty cool. It was great seeing everyone again, and what made it special was that some of the kids from last year were there.

Today, I was supposed to be working on my introduction, but Mum, Loz and me got sidetracked by some documents that belonged to my Grandad. There dated in the 1650s and are connected to the English Civil War. Basically, it seems that we might be connected to Guy Fawkes in some way, which is pretty cool and might explain why I like V for Vendetta so much. Anyways, I scanned them into the computer and brought out the details to make them legible. The title is that of 'A Perfect Djurnal of Passages in Parliament' (written in ye olde english) which was the title of one of the earliest newspapers in Britain. This specimen however, is even rarer and looks to be notations made by a journalist for the newspaper. We still havn't deciphered all of it yet, but we are going to contact the British History Museum - who have a large collection of similar artifacts - for help.

Mum and I are fascinated by the history, my brother wants to know how much it's worth. Bless his capitalistic cotton socks.

Update: The signature of the document seems to be that of Thomas Winter who was...
"Sir Thomas Winter, 2nd Baronet of Huddington Court, was born in 1620, the only son of Robert Winter and Ann Faulks, who was of Flemish descent. His father Robert, was the youngest son of Robert Wintour the gunpowder plotter."